Many of the world's greatest novels have been translated into Persian. The Persian novel tradition also claims its masters, but there is no significant trace of Persian novels in the international literary market or critical discussions - no Iranian novelist has ever been awarded a significant literary prize and, except in orientalist communities, Iranian novelists are almost completely unknown in the outside world. Any anthology of World Literature gives evidence of this: despite novels being published for more than a century, it is still classical literature that represents Iran. What...